


The Last Day

by Blairdiggory



Category: Every Day - David Levithan
Genre: Death, Gen, Homophobia, a couple warnings not in the archive warnings, this got sad and deep REAL QUICK Y'ALL
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-07
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-05-19 05:25:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14867459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blairdiggory/pseuds/Blairdiggory
Summary: Another take on the world of Every Day.A character named Z, who tries to leave each body the inhabit better than they found it. But playing God has consequences.





	The Last Day

Sometimes, I let myself stay up until midnight. When I sleep, I change bodies smoothly. When I’m awake, I feel myself shatter into thousands of shards, and the part of me that is me screams at the pain. Then I feel the shards being melted and molded into something new, some new body. I don’t always love the feeling, but I let myself experience it from time to time.   
I’m not an adrenaline junky. I’m not a masochist. I just know that in that moment, I’m only me. That pain is something no one else can feel, no matter what body I’m in, and it lets me know that I am real. Somewhere, on some plane of existence, I am real.   
When you don’t have a body of your own, you can forget you’re real. You forget that you don’t need something physical to be real. You are not your body. There is something deeper inside you that makes you you.   
I think I am that something, just without a body. I am me.  
I am Z.

I call myself Z because just as Z ends the alphabet, I am an ending. I am the end of somebody’s bad days. I am the end of their old life.   
I never leave a body the way I found it. I leave it better. I believe I was made to travel from body to body for a reason. And that reason is to push people into their fullest potential.   
Maybe I give someone an A on a test because I know the material, even if they don’t. Maybe I finally tell their partner that I love them. I hope they remember the next day what I did. I want them to remember who they were before and know that something changed inside them. It isn’t always a big change, but it’s a change for the better. An A might encourage them to study harder for the next test. An “I love you” might decide their future spouse.   
I don’t think I’m God. God wouldn’t focus on one individual at a time. I’m just a force doing good to people’s lives. I don’t need recognition. It’s my purpose.   
Someday I will see the good I’ve created. For now, I’m living life day to day. 

Today I wake up as Aria Johnson. I’ve always felt more at home in a female body. I don’t particularly think I am a girl or a boy, but I have always had a preference for waking up as a girl. Today is no exception.   
I get up at the alarm, shower, and look in the mirror. The sight startles me. I’ve seen her face before.  
I was her best friend yesterday.   
I am giddy. I’ve never been so close to someone I’ve been before. I helped her friend, Jasmine, on a test yesterday in biology. She didn’t know the answers, but I certainly did. I hope I helped her grade. I hope I have a chance to see my good work.  
Aria rides the bus to school. Jasmine doesn’t take the bus, but they meet in the cafeteria before the first bell rings.   
“What’s up?” I ask Jasmine. She looks disoriented.  
“Nothing much,” Jasmine says. “I’m just not looking forward to getting my bio quiz back. I felt so out of it yesterday. I probably did horrible.”   
“I’m sure you did fine,” I say as casually as possible.   
So that’s what it feels like to people after I’ve been them. They feel that I’ve been there. They don’t remember everything, but they have sensed my presence.   
“I hope you’re right…” she sighs. The bell rings, and we head to our separate classes.   
I’ve been to this school before. Before Jasmine, I was a boy named Eric, and he attended this school too. He was gay, but no one knew. I told his friends about this over text message after school. I bet Eric is happier now that he has friends who can support him.   
I don’t meet anyone that Aria knows particularly well. She and Jasmine are best friends, but it appears they only have each other. The exception to this is a boy named Nick Perez.   
Aria and Nick are in the same French class. I feel flutter of Aria’s heart as she sees him for the first time today. A part of Aria’s mind tells me that Nick Perez is her long-time crush. I grin upon realizing the change I can make in Aria’s life. I will ask out Nick for her. She will be so happy.   
I do not get a chance to ask him on a date before the bell rings. As I sit down, I access Aria’s memory. It tells me that she has lunch during the same period as Nick. I will just have to ask him then.   
I speak very little French, but I take extensive notes by sounding out the words. Aria probably won’t miss much. I spend my time thinking about how I will ask out Nick.   
Lunch is next period. Normally, Aria eats lunch with Jasmine, but Jasmine is absent from their normal spot next to the cafeteria’s windows. I find Nick instead and walk over to him.   
My phone buzzes, and I pull it out. Jasmine is calling, but I ignore her call. I will have to put friendship on hold. Love takes precedence.   
Nick Perez is surrounded by friends. He has many friends, while Aria has few. She is intimidated by this, but I try to ease Aria’s mind. I understand that it is the quality of friends and not the number of friends that make friendship strong, and I will try to instill this idea in her.   
Nick looks up as I approach.   
“Can I join you?” I ask.   
He looks to his friends for approval. They appear to be having an intense debate over the school’s football team and do not notice Aria. Nick shrugs.  
“Sure,” he says. He makes room for me, and I sit down beside him. I smile.   
“I wanted to ask you something,” I say.   
Nick looks like he wants to get into the football debate, but he stops to consider me. He chews on a French fry.   
“Yeah?” he says.  
“Do you want to go out with me? I’m free on Friday,” I say.   
Nick chokes on his French fry. His friends have heard what I said and have stopped their conversation. They look expectant.   
“I-I-“ Nick stutters. “I’m… sorry? Who are you again?”  
“Aria? We’re in the same French class,” I say. Of course he knows me. My proposal must have caught him off guard. It’s not every day that a pretty girl asks someone on a date.   
“Wow, jeez, I’m flattered. Really,” Nick says. “But, I’m not really interested.”  
I freeze.   
“I kind of just learned your name for the first time today, so I don’t really think it would work…”  
His friends are laughing.   
This is not how it’s supposed to go.   
He was supposed to say yes. He was supposed to be excited. He was supposed to already be in love with Aria, watching her from afar as she’s been doing with him. And when I asked him to go on a date with Aria, he was supposed to leap for joy and announce to his friends that the girl of his dreams just asked him to go on a date. Because this is what he was supposed to want.   
How could he not?  
Aria’s stomach twists. Her phone buzzes again, more insistent this time.  
“I, um, I have to take a call,” I say numbly.   
“Yeah, yeah, you do that,” Nick Perez says, breaking Aria’s heart into a thousand shards that can’t be molded and melded like mine. They are stagnant. They are dull.  
I yank my phone out of my bag and head to the restroom. Strictly speaking, phones aren’t allowed in the school, so I’m better off out of sight. Some part of me wants to be out of sight anyway. Rejection is hard.  
Why wasn’t he in love with Aria? He should have been.  
Jasmine is calling again. I pick up, and I hear crying.   
“Jasmi-?”  
“I got suspended,” she says between sobs.   
“What?!”  
“That test yesterday in biology- I got a perfect score-“ Jasmine gasps out.  
“That’s great!” I chime in.   
“But they think I cheated,” she says. “And I can’t explain my score- and they suspended me-“  
I nearly drop the phone in surprise.   
I got her that score.   
This is my fault?  
“And now it’s gonna be on my record-“ she says. “What do I do?”  
I stutter into the phone.   
“I don’t know,” I say lamely. “I have to go-“  
“Wait-“  
I hang up. Jasmine tries to call me back. I don’t answer.  
I just have to clear my head. I just have to know this isn’t my fault. I was trying to help Aria and Jasmine. This isn’t what was supposed to-  
I stumble into a stall and lock the door behind me. I sit on the toilet. Everything is fine. Everything is fine.   
Everything is not fine.   
I don’t get it. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. Aria is supposed to be with the love of her life. Jasmine is supposed to become a better student and get into her dream college. I don’t get it. What-?  
I hear footsteps and muffle my breathing. No one needs to hear me cry. I don’t need to cry. I’m not crying.   
Two pairs of legs stand in front of the bathroom mirrors. The girls attached to them talk.   
“Did you hear about Eric?”  
“That he’s a fag?”  
“Yeah, his friends said he told them on Monday.”  
No.  
“What a fucking joke.”  
“Right?”  
This isn’t right. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go.   
“He hasn’t showed up to school since.”  
“I mean, I know I wouldn’t.”  
The girls laugh. I’m shaking. Instead of waiting for them to finish, I run out of the bathroom. I have to get away, and maybe if I calm down, just maybe, things will make sense because what’s happening now makes no sense. It’s not supposed to be like this. This isn’t how things were supposed to play out.   
I need air. I run out of the school while I try to muffle my sobbing. I run into the crosswalk. I hear honking, and then I feel myself being shattered into shards again, but something is different. Something is wrong. It’s not midnight. The shards are being melted and molded more slowly, as if through water instead of air. It’s too dark. 

When I wake up, I am in a new body. It’s 6AM, and my first instinct is to check my phone. When I do, I see a barrage of social media posts, all about one girl.   
Aria Johnson.   
She’s dead, killed in a car accident after running into the road. 

I am Z. I call myself that because just as Z ends the alphabet, I am an ending. I am the end of somebody’s bad days. I am the end of their old life.   
And sometimes, I am the end of their entire life.  
But I myself have no end.   
I guess that makes me God. Or, I could be the Devil. They’re really one and the same, aren’t they?


End file.
